


the colour of your bones

by orphan_account



Category: Double Indemnity (1944)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 20:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12589584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Phyllis Dietrichson has them all on a string.





	the colour of your bones

**Author's Note:**

> my best friend watched this for a class so i watched it with her and here we all are
> 
> sorry for any typos
> 
> title from [digging your own grave by lauren clem](https://renlau.bandcamp.com/track/digging-your-own-grave)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phyllis Dietrichson has them all on a string. One by one, she meant to cut them all off with a flick of the wrist. Hanging by their necks, they don’t know that the knot of the noose has been tied and is ready to tighten as soon as the former nurse is ready to kick the box out from under them.

 

Her stepdaughter, Lola, has always seen through her; if there’s a veil separating the world from what Phyllis really is, then Lola is the only one to ever lift the edge and peer at the ugly, gaping hole underneath the white satin and faux fur. Of course, that means she has to be the first to go. The girl saw her sign the former Mrs. Dietrichson’s death warrant—and so, in turn, Lola signed her own.

 

There are always ways to make people vanish from you, Phyllis knows: you just have to know what to do.

 

So Phyllis calls Nino Zachetti, sounding tearful and sad for him, and tells him, when he gets to the house, that she has terrible news. “Just terrible,” she says, shaking her head and smoothing back her hair with her hands to appear distraught when, really, she’s glowing darkly like frothing shadows on the inside. “I didn’t want it to be true,” she assures him, and the young man stands here—awkward, tense, waiting. It’s obvious Lola’s voice her opinions by the way he’s side-eyeing her, but never mind that—men are almost always the easiest for her to sway. Phyllis tells him: she sees her stepdaughter come home late sometime, being dropped off by men no one in the house knows, smelling of cologne that _definitely_ isn’t his. And, of course, he doesn’t believe her right away. That’s why she calls him the next day, and the day after, and he sees her every time. Because she knows how to play him like a prodigy knows his piano keys, it takes no time at all to crack the surface and fill the boy with doubt.

 

It’s _always_ been easy, this part.

 

But it’s not quite done yet. By the time Phyllis puts the gun under her seat cushion in preparation of Walter’s arrival, she knows Zachetti is angry and hurt, though he hasn’t been pushed to the brink yet; he hasn’t cleared that edge yet. All it will take is one more push—

 

And then—

 

 _Bang. Bang_.

 

Phyllis Dietrichson is dead.

 

Outside, while bleeding out, Walter tells Zachetti: Lola loves him, and no one else. Take this new nickel and call her, talk to her, because that’s what she wants. And Zachetti does: he goes to the drugstore and calls Lola. Her voice comes crackling through and it all bleeds out of him, all at once, except for the lingering residue that bat Phyllis left in his system. And when he sees Lola in the middle of the night, and sees her face, the rest of that poison-doubt drains out of him, and he falls asleep in her living room, right on her couch.

 

He dreams of Phyllis laughing at him for being a fool; when he wakes up, that man Keyes from Pacific All Risk gives Lola the news: her stepmother was shot dead last night by Walter, and Walter died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Her tears are bitter in the grey light of early morning, but the sun is coming up, and he squints as bright light fills the room from the window above the kitchen sink.

 

Phyllis Dietrichson had them all tied up, and in the end, she was hung with her own string.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
